When I first read about Robin William’s suicide, I immediately thought of the suicides in my family… not even a year has passed since the most recent one. Depression can take even the best of us down. It is not to be taken lightly. It is a monster, a big, powerful, unrelenting monster. Depression will come and go. It is rarely a constant in the life of one who suffers from it so it is important to manage it as best you can, stay one step ahead of it if possible.
In my research, as a dream analyst, and in my own experiences I have found that our dreams will often give those of us that suffer from depression a heads up when another bout is on the way, making it a tad easier to manage. If you suffer from depression, look for these symbols, or variations of them, in your dreams:
Your dreams being void of color and in shades of grey.
In dreams colors can symbolize your current emotional state. Yellow can represent fear, red can represent anger. Blue can point to the blues, but it is more a situational blues such as being blue over your best friend moving away rather than a full on depression. Overwhelming grey in a dream is more often a tell tale sign of depression as it indicates a lack of vibrancy in your mind.
Frequent falling and/or drowning dreams.
When falling or drowning you are going down and that’s the operative word here, down. Depression brings you down. It is heavy. It’s like an elephant sitting on you. And it can feel like falling or drowning, like there is nothing to support you. Your emotions, your thoughts, your hopes, everything just keeps going down, down, down. Dreams bring to life what is going on in the psyche.
Something submerged below the surface of water about to emerge.
This is one I get a lot, usually it is an alligator below the surface of the water but it has been other nondescript things. In this sort of dream the surface of the water would represent your emotional surface and the creature or object just below it is the depression getting ready to rise and show its ugly self beyond your ability to keep it pushed down.
Shadows and dark rooms.
Dark rooms often symbolize the darkness within yourself. Often, a person will dream of a house that has a dark room in it (not the type of dark room that is used for photography but rather a room with no light) and the person is afraid to go in there. Sometimes they are feeling pushed in there by an unseen force. This dream is a big time warning that your dark depression needs you to focus on it so you can manage it. Shadows in dreams can often represent the part of the self that we consider our dark side, the Heisenberg to our Walter White, so to speak. If the shadow is becoming threatening to you in your dream, and it is a frequent dream then this could be your depression beginning to take over.
Rain and storms.
Rain in dreams is a classic symbol for tears in real life, often tears you have not allowed yourself to shed. We all have situations that cause us to be sad but if the rain in your dream is frequent and especially if it’s a torrential downpour, this could be your depression getting ready to drench your psyche once again.
Obviously, we are all different and can have our own personal symbols for depression in our dreams but the ones mentioned above are fairly common. Often, they will show up in your dreams as a warning because your body is telling you a bout of depression is on the way. This will allow you to prepare for it. You can plan to spend some time outside with friends. Surround yourself with people who make your laugh. Go see a funny movie or volunteer. Helping others can do wonders for your psyche and your soul!
There are also times when you are already in the throws of darkness when these dreams happen. At that point your dreaming mind is merely showing you what the inside of your mind looks like. A picture is worth a thousand words, as they say. Sometimes seeing yourself in a different perspective can help you to make better decisions regarding your depression. I don’t want to be void of color on the inside. I really should get help, for example. These are the times you need to tell someone what’s going on with you. They will want to help you!
Sometimes seeing yourself in a different perspective can help you to make better decisions regarding your depression.
Most depressions don’t end in suicide, but enough of them do that we all need to take depression more seriously. If you have depression DO NOT BE EMBARRASSED to tell someone. At the very least, you can call a depression hotline. I Googled it so I could put one here in the post but there were so many! There is help everywhere so ask for it. Depression CAN be managed. Things can get better.
